We all know it hasn’t been easy recruiting through the pandemic, ‘The Great Resignation’, and the candidate shortage. Whether you’ve struggled to find candidates, or you keep losing them to dreaded counteroffers at the last minute, this year has been full of challenges to say the least!
To give you something to smile about, we created a list of 8 GIFs that perfectly sum up the highs and lows of recruiting through a candidate shortage – can you relate?
1. When you’ll try anything to find a great candidate
When you have so many job openings to manage it should be great news for your wallet! But when the competition is this fierce, you’ve really got to work hard to find talent.
The bad news is, trawling the same job boards as your competitors isn’t going to cut it! To find and place candidates nobody else is talking to, you’ve got to be creative with your sourcing and attracting methods (and we aren’t talking about hiding in the bushes!) and how you work the candidates in your CRM.
If you’re building talent pools right, and engaging passive candidates, you’ll be able to fill all those jobs and keep the commission coming in!
2. Trying to recruit a candidate before your competitor does
When candidates are in high demand, a lengthy time to hire can impact whether you make the placement or lose out to a competitor. To overcome this challenge, you’ve got to do everything you can to speed up the recruitment process.
To avoid losing talent, educate your clients on the market and create a sense of urgency that drives the process forward. It won’t always be easy, but reducing the time-to-hire by a day or two can make all the difference – better crack an energy drink!
3. When your client’s not open to hearing about the importance of employer branding
‘Employer branding’ is one of the most important marketing tactics your client’s can implement right now, but convincing them to take it seriously can be tough!
No matter how good of a recruiter you are, you’re only going to be able to really sell a job to a candidate if your client’s brand is shining in all its glory! If it isn’t, how can they expect to attract top talent over companies that have a strong employer brand? Use these 8 shocking employer branding stats to grab their attention.
4. Desperately trying to build a strong personal brand to attract candidates
If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know we’re huge advocates for recruiters creating a strong personal brand. Without one, you risk coming across like every other recruiter out there! If you want to become a go-to recruiter in this industry and stay ahead of your competitors, you first need to make yourself and your expertise known. Personal branding can help you do just that!
Taking time to refine your messaging, and posting valuable content regularly is exactly how you’ll grab the attention of candidates (and clients!) and keep them engaged. The best news is there are plenty of free personal branding tools to help.
5. That feeling when you place a candidate and nothing goes wrong
Recruiters have been up against so many problems the last couple of years. This GIF perfectly sums up that feeling you get when you’ve successfully sourced and placed a candidate….and nothing goes wrong! In challenging time like this, this can often feel unbelievable *jaw drops*.
6. When your candidate ghosts you for another recruiter
There’s nothing worse than when you’ve spent all your time sourcing the perfect candidate for the role, passed them on to your client whose invited them to interview, only for them to…disappear.
It’s a scenario we’re all a little too familiar with. The key to keeping candidates on your side? Become a pro at candidate management. Stay close to your candidates and attuned to their needs and they are less likely to ghost you.
7. When your candidate gets a job offer but they’re thinking of taking a counteroffer
That feeling when: You’ve done all the work and your candidate’s got the job offer you’ve been waiting for… only to find out they have been counter-offered by their current company.
This is particularly frustrating when your candidate assured you that they hate their current position. While you might be tempted to beg them to stay, it’s not the most professional of tactics! But if you’ve built any kind of relationship with them, there might be a chance you’ll convince them to more forwards and not back. Or better still, if you’ve put in the work to test your candidate’s commitment, you shouldn’t end up in this situation in the first place.
8. Making commission against all the odds
In a candidate-short market clients really need your help making it a hugely profitable time for recruiters. But finding talent is easier said than done. Whilst each GIF in this blog had summed up the challenges, we wanted to end on a positive note! This final GIF perfectly sums up how it feels to be powering through, filling roles and making big commissions against all the odds!
Now that we’ve had a laugh at all the challenges the candidate-shortage has thrown our way, it’s time to get back to recruiting! Download our eBook below for tips on how to thrive in this market.
